It's not art and it's barely entertainment

Rating: 3/10 (19 July 2013)

I thought to myself "giant monsters beaming themselves into the pacific, fighting giant robots, what could be wrong with that?" And the answer is, quite a bit...quite....a....bit.
I'll start with what del Toro has done well here, he's created some incredible sets, I mean these sets are enormous, and he's used CGI to make these hangers and workshops every bit as jaw dropping as you'd hope if the world had really pooled its resources in such a way. If only your favorite nerd sci fi TV show had this budget. There are some great scenes, great stills. And for the effort here, and for the balls to make such a movie, I'm giving this a pass. 5 out of 10.
From about the 2 minute mark, or very early on at least, the movie pretty much tells you what kind of movie you are are about to watch, for the next 2.4 hours of your life. Firstly it's a movie with no real people in it. The authorities in this world must be incredibly stupid for a start, who are wanting to abandon the fighting machine project in favor of building sea walls. After 25 seconds of this movie we know that his insane, and that here we are dealing with a 12 year old world in which the authorities are pretty much no smarter than your stupid parents. The good guys, the warriors, are unfortunately no smarter, despite all the cool things they've surrounded them selves with, and have the emotional intelligence of wookies. These characters are so clichéd and predictable you want to slap them all every time you see them. A movie like Starship Troopers is Hamlet compared to this screenplay.
Beyond this, the only remotely interesting thing is watching the fight scenes and the monsters trash the cities. But I venture that despite the huge budget thrown at it, even this does not deliver. To make the monsters continually more scary del Toro relies more and mo on CGI throughout, and so they become less and less real. For all their size and fury, they are far far far less scary than the monster from Cloverrfield, to pick a random monster comparison. And the fight scenes, really start to get boring, and the end is merciful indeed.
All in all, the question is "how can a 170 million dollar budget result in something so unsatisfactory?". This movie is terribly out of proportion, a movie from the mind of a child, and the budget of Apple, it isn't good, it's not art, it's barely entertainment.